World Braille Day is annually celebrated on January 4, on the occasion of the birth anniversary of Braille inventor, Louis Braille. The day recognizes the contributions of Louis Braille in helping blind and visually impaired people to read and write.
Louis Braille was born on January 4, 1809 in France to Simon-René Braille who maintained a successful enterprise of making leather products. At the age of 3, when he was playing with some of his father’s tools, he accidentally hurt one of his eye. He was immediately taken to the local doctor but his eye couldn’t be saved. By the age of 5 he lost sight in both of his eyes due to infection from the affected eye.
Louis joined the Royal Institution for Blind Youth in Paris at the age of 10. The children were taught how to read by a system devised by the school’s founder, Valentin Haüy. The method involved using a technique of embossing heavy paper with the raised imprints of Latin letters. The children would trace the raised imprints and understand what was written.
However, Louis Braille was not satisfied with this method as it was quite difficult and only taught the children to read and not write. At that point of time, Captain Charles Barbier of the French Army came as a hope in his life. Barbier had devised a method using 12 dots named as “Night Writing” for soldiers to communicate with each other at night. It proved too tough to be practical for the military but it gave Louis an idea which he used to modify the system to what we know today as Braille Script. He simplified the method and reduced it to 6 dots.
Louis Braille may have been blinded by accident but his hard working nature and undying spirit gave humanity a boon in the form of Braille Script which has enabled millions of blind people to read and write. It shows that no disability can stop you if you have the will to do great things.
